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Skyline High booster ready to dismantle 'touchdown cannon' at season's end

By Scott RochatLongmont Times-Call

Posted:
10/22/2012 11:22:06 PM MDT

Updated:
10/23/2012 12:55:51 PM MDT

Steve McHone poses for a portrait with his acetylene cannon on Monday. The cannon, which had been used to celebrate Skyline High School touchdowns, was silenced after last week's game. (Greg Lindstrom)

LONGMONT -- Not everyone gets to drive around with a quarter-ton of "boom" on their trailer hitch.

"It's fun to watch people pull up beside you and get wide-eyed when they see you hauling a cannon around town, " said Steve McHone, the maker and shooter of Skyline High School's "touchdown cannon," an acetylene gun that fired at home games after every Falcons score.

St. Vrain Valley School District officials called for disarmament last week after a Thursday night game brought five Falcons scores, five Falcons booms and several neighborhood calls to police dispatchers. So, for now, the gun sits at McCone's home, awaiting its dismantling.

After the season's end, anyway. There is one home game left -- and while the McHones consider a reprieve unlikely, you never know.

"I guess our fallback on Friday night will be that all of us parents have placards that say 'boom' on them," joked McHone's wife, Patrisa.

Bringing the blast

McHone's been something of a volunteer craftsman for Skyline's football program these last four years. He's built a rack for the team's weight room and several linemen's chutes for blocking practice.

"The first few (chutes) we built had something of a short lifespan, because the neighborhood kids liked to use them for a jungle gym," McHone said. "But this latest version should last a good 15 or 20 years."

But the cannon was something different. McHone, whose son Alex plays for the team, was approached last season about putting one together. Or actually, about bringing one back -- the school apparently had one years and years ago, he said, though no one could recall exactly when.

One requirement: since the gun would be charged with oxy-acetylene , a welder's fuel, it would have to be fired by a qualified welder. That pretty much meant McHone, who's done that sort of work for 30 years.

"I thought it sounded like fun," he said. "I thought it would be something exciting to have and add more of a home-game flavor to it. Since Skyline doesn't have their own field (Everly-Montgomery Field is shared by several schools), I thought this was a way we could make this our field when we were there."

It took a week to build the cannon (which fired no actual projectile). Version 1 debuted during the 2011 season, but was soon tinkered with for greater safety.

"With this version, you don't have to stick your arm down the barrel with the charge of oxy-acetylene ," McHone explained. "You can actually load it from the back."

When done, version two and final had a seven-foot-long barrel, a 500-pound frame, and inch-thick steel at several points. Oh, and bright red racing flames painted along its length.

"It looks good from 10 feet," McHone said with a chuckle. "But you don't want to get much closer than that."

Boom and bust

The new artillery didn't draw much attention at first because ... well, because Skyline wasn't drawing much attention either. The team went 1-9 last year, with few trips to the end zone and thus few calls for a booming celebration.

But this year, the team has been 4-4. And as McHone had hoped, the touchdown cannon helped charge the crowd.

The trouble came when it charged up some of the neighbors, too.

"It shakes my entire house, scares the neighborhood dogs into a state of horror and nearly implodes all of the windows in my home every time that it is fired," neighbor Dave Kilzer wrote in an email after Thursday night's game.

"After the first one, I ran outside, I thought a building or home had exploded," an online commenter said on the Times-Call's website.

After a brief consultation with the police, the superintendent's office made the call: Hush the boom.

As it happens, McHone's career in sound effects would have come to an end soon, anyway; with his son graduating, he'd been talking with other volunteers about who could take over the cannon next season. After the news broke, he checked to see if his old high school in Leon, Kan., would want it, but the school didn't have anyone who could shoot the thing.

"So it'll probably be dismantled," he said. "It doesn't make much of a lawn ornament."

He hasn't petitioned the district for a one-game reprieve. But he hasn't started the breakdown yet, either. Again, there is one home game left.

"Since it's the last game, they could say 'Let it slide,'" McHone said. "But I'm not going to push it."

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